Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968) "You have shown us this evening that we are in the present of a phenomenon equal to the youth of Bach and Mozart..." - Marcel Dupré "In the world of the arts, a fairytale evokes either annoyance or delight. But one must believe it when the unique and prodigious character happens to be a young lady of 25 years of age, who from the very first moment of her public appearance manifested herself as the irresistable, absolute perfection." - Bernard Gavoty in Le Figaro These were the words, dating from February 1946, in which Jeanne Demessieux was praised, just after her spectacular and strategically perfectly planned debut concerts in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, an event that shook the organ world and marking one of the great events when a legendary performer appears in public for the first time. Youth and education Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Demessieux was born at 13th of Februari 1921 in Montpellier, France, as the second daughter of modest, but musicloving parents. At the age of three it was already clear that she had a great musical gift: when the Demessieux family was invited to attend a performance of Gluck's Orpheus ed Eurydice and were unable to find a babysitter, they took their young daughter with them. Amazingly, she listened intensively to the whole performance and at home she spontaneously sang one of the aria's she just heard! Young Jeanne at home,1931 Her sister Yolande, 14 years her senior, took care of her first musical education. Jeanne joined the Montpellier Conservatoire very early and, 11 years old, she took the first prize for piano and solfège, performing Widor's Piano Concerto. The parents of Jeanne then realized that a provincial town was not able to give their daughter the ideal musical education, and they moved to Paris. Being faithful Catholics, they joined the congregation in the newly built church of Saint Esprit, and it didn't take long before Jeanne was asked to be the organist of this church. First she played on a harmonium, a year later, in 1934, the church installed a new 17-stop pipeorgan. Some months after the Demessieux' arrival in Paris, Jeanne joined the Paris Conservatoire as a pianist. Already during her studies her exceptional gifts for both performing ánd composing impressed her teachers, a.o. Lazare-Levy (piano), Noel and Jean Gallon (theory), winning several first prizes with them: for harmony (1937), piano (1938), and fuge (1939). She worked hard at the Conservatoire: once, in a period of 8 days she mastered two of Liszt's transcendental etudes and the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody, as well as Beethoven Sonate op. 106, Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fuge and several Chopin Etudes! For her first prize in piano, she competed with no less than 55 others, playing brilliantly one of Liszt's Piano Concerto's. After the installation of a pipe organ in the church of Saint Esprit, she needed an organ teacher, and a meeting with the famous Marcel Dupré, teaching organ at the Conservatory and organist of the St. Sulpicechurch, took place. Jeanne wrote in her diary on this date, the 8th of October 1936: "UNFORGETTABLE RENDEZ-VOUS". In the musichall of Dupré's private house in Meudon, which was equipped with the former Cavaillé-Coll organ of Alexandre Guilmant and an grand piano, Jeanne played Beethoven's Sonate op. 106, Liszts' Vision and Feux Follets and on the organ a Prelude and Fuge by Bach. Then Dupré gave her a theme to improvise. After this audition, Dupré said to her mother: "From now on, I am taking this child under my artistic wing" - words that not only indicate that Dupré realized that a talent of this stature could be his dream student, but also that she could fulfill a special role in realizing other goals and ideals, as we will see later. Dupré, took her in the organclass, although organ remained until 1938 only her second instrument. Next to this, she and her teachers held high hopes for her winning the first prize for composition. Although she attempted this several times, it never happened; was this because some members of Conservatoirejury were not in favor of female composers, or was it because she was associated with Marcel Dupré, then by many colleagues considered to be a hopeless conservative, still writing Preludes and Fuges? Whatever it may have caused, after the first great successes this was Demessieux's first setback. Nevertheless, from the first meeting in 1936 both Jeanne Demessieux and Marcel Dupré found in each other a likeness of mind and many common interests. Dupré had stunned the world by learning by heart the complete works of Bach and all the other major organ works, a famous performer who had great successes with concerttours, spreading his fame as far as the United States and Australia; with his analytical mind, he developed his skills in improvisation in a systematical way, never heard before. As a composer he had won the prestigious Prix de Rome, and his organ pieces greatly enriched organliterature and pushed organplaying technique to the next level. This must have appealed to the young Jeanne whit her prodigious memory, but most of all her eagerness to learn as much as possible and the will to work hard on new challenges. In 1941 she got the first prize for organ unanimously for a jury consisting of Gallon. Duruflé, Fleury, Marchal, Cellier and Litaize. She played, among other things, Liszt's Ad nos ad salutarem undam; it was her first attempt for the prize, only Messiaen before her actually succeeded in winning it the first time. In St. Sulpice, 1946 An ideal collaboration However, it was 1941, and Dupré, realizing that her talent was worthy to go much further than the closed borders of wartime, made an agreement with the Demessieux family: he offered to give her private lessons for free, as long as the borders were closed, to perfect her technique, and to work on every aspect of her development as the ideal preparation for a great career.... We can ask the question if the excitement Dupré undoubtedly felt over such a once-in-a- lifetime talent and the concern he had about her person the only reasons were for this generous agreement? For the answer of this question, we should be aware that Dupré's position as organist and composer and his ideas about the future of the organ were suffering under certain new developments in the French organ scene. It is important in the story about Demessieux to understand a little of this background. Norbert Dufourq, a musicologist, together with his close friend André Marchal (who was organist of the St. Eustachechurch, Paris), was initiating in the 1930’s the so-called "Organ Reform"- movement. This movement revived and revalued the interest in historical organs from the baroque era and propagated in new organs the combination of baroque, romantic and modern elements, calling this the style néoclassique. They associated themselves with the organbuilder Victor Gonzalez, who, in their eyes, could realize this ideals. Gonzalez rebuilt in 1939 the famous Cavaillé-Coll-organ from the Palais du Trocadéro, a true masterpiece for which Franck and Widor were inspired to write famous works (Franck's Trois Pieces and Widor's 5th and 6th Symphonies). Nothing of this splendour is found in Gonzalez respectless rebuilding, unwilling to understand the importance and quality of this organ. Before 1939, this organ had been one of Dupré's favourites too: he even raised funds for restauration of this instrument in 1926, and played on it the complete Bachworks as well as many premieres of his own works. Dupré furthermore found it very important that in a concerthall a good organ was placed, taking an integral part in the musical life, not restricted to the religious surroundings. In his concerttours he had encountered the modern technologies of Setzer and combination systems, and according to him the tonal qualities of the Cavaillé-Coll organ (maybe enlarged with extra stops as he did with his own organ in Meudon) combined with modern technologies could make the ideal organ of the future: as a full-worthy concert instrument, with as much public attention and highly trained virtuoso performers as other instruments like the piano or the violin. The Organ Reform movement however was interested in different repertoire, such as old music, searching for more differentiated articulation then Dupré's legato school. They gathered a lot of (international) attention with their then fresh ideas. This rivalry must have worried Dupré, who wanted to carry on the tradition he got from Widor. However, the Gonzalez rebuild of the Trocadero-organ must in Dupré's uncompromising mind have turned Marchal and Dufourq from mere rivals into sworn enemies: after the inauguration of this unfortunate rebuild in the Palais du Chaillot, played by Dupré himself, Marchal was appointed its titulaire... The years of the occupation of Paris by the Germans, Demessieux studied with Dupré all the aspects of organplaying, improvisation, composition and organbuilding. He wrote, to challenge her technique, the Suite op. 39, Offrande à la Vierge op. 40 and the Trois Esquisses op. 41; in 1944, Demessieux herself wrote her Six Etudes, still being one of the benchmarks in absolute virtuosity. Jeanne accompanied Dupré to concerts he gave, with testing new instruments, helping preparing new editions and replacing him at services in St. Sulpice. Next to this, she gave private recitals, mostly in his house in Meudon. In her diary, she writes about the intense relation and about Dupré's intentions with her: "July 1941; 'Dupré revealed to me the secret of his technique, which I am not permitted to translate..